


Goodbye Is Not The End

by J_33



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Loss, romanogers - Freeform, sorry for this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-08
Updated: 2015-03-08
Packaged: 2018-03-16 21:41:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3503771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/J_33/pseuds/J_33
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She was supposed to be the one to die first.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Goodbye Is Not The End

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't posted in a while but was really feeling this. I wrote fics with Natasha dying but never this, so enjoy, despite the sadness, I warn you of now.

She was supposed to be the one to die first. Natasha always imagined she would be KIA, or MIA, and never found. She always thought it would be the team at her funeral, saying their goodbyes, but knowing that she died doing what she did best: protecting people. She always hoped when she died her ledger would be clean, and she’d be able to embrace death, not run from it like she has done her whole life. 

But now, as she waited outside the hospital room, she felt the sudden urge to run, to sprint, anywhere, somewhere, as long as it was away from this mess, this tragedy that seemed only to occur in the bittersweet Nicholas Spark films that she always forced Clint to see with her, or some tragic Shakespearian play. Good people are not supposed to die this way in real life, Heroes are supposed to go out with a bang, not slowly fade away, yet as she stood outside Steve Rogers hospital room, and listened to the quiet murmur of the heart monitor, she realized everything that was never meant to happen, was happening, and it was happening to him. 

Natasha was broken out of her daze, when Thor appeared next to her. “Have you said your farewells yet?” he asked.

“I’m trying to figure out what to say,” she responded. “It shouldn’t be him.”

“There are no words to express the coming loss of a man, a captain, no, a warrior, so great. And there are surely no words to explain why the most unfair fates are granted upon those who least deserve it, but there is one thing I must tell you Lady Natasha. In all my years on this earth I have crossed paths with many great men, but none as worthy to hold my Mjolnir, as our dear Captain. He does not deserve this unwelcome passing, but he does deserve your goodbye, and there is no one more worthy to grant him that then you,” Thor finished, and then walked back into the waiting room where the rest of the team was waiting.

They had all already said their goodbye, and with Thor’s wise words in the back of mind, she realized that it was her time to say goodbye as well.

Entering the room, her heart skipped a beat. Steve looked so frail, and weak, though is body still held the form of the great Captain America, she knew that inside, everything else was failing him. Just a few days ago, she had fought alongside him, as he used the serum to lift cars off of civilians and save the world. Now she watched as that very thing was slowly killing him, poisoning his blood, betraying his body in a way nothing else could ever do.

She took a seat in the plastic chair besides his bed. His eyes were shut, but she knew that he wasn’t asleep. She still hadn’t said goodbye yet. 

“You, and me,” she said. “We’re like night and day. “You’re old, and I’m young,” she said giving out a weak laugh. “You’re so kind, and well, I’m kinda a bitch sometimes, and you’re everything that a hero should be, while I’m just a spy,” she stopped to take a breath. “When Fury first assigned us as partners, I told him that he was making a mistake. That two people so different, could never work together, but he just shook his head, and told me to wait and see; that I wasn’t giving you enough credit. Then after a few of our missions, I realized you’re more than just America’s golden boy, and you’re more than some man in the wrong time – you’re someone that the world needs more of, and I wish that you could get more time then you’ve got because if anyone in the world deserves it, it is you,” she paused, knowing that there was something she needed to say before it was too late.

“You are a good man, but that’s not why I fell in love with you. I’ve been around a few genuinely good men in my life, and I’ve watched them get tackled under so much crap, and I’ve seen them fall, and never get up again, but I’ve never seen you quit no matter the hell you’ve been through. You always get back up, and I always see that there’s some fight left in your eyes, even when you’re fighting for complete strangers,” Natasha put his hand in hers. “Steve, you and me are so different, but I can’t help but love you, and it kills me inside to see you like this, but I want you to know that it’s okay. It is okay to not get up and keep fighting, it’s okay to give up and let go, because you’ve been so strong for so long, and I can’t ask you to keep fighting a battle that your going to loose in the end; I can’t ask you to keep fighting for me,” she said, as her eyes filled with unshed tears.

“You taught me what it meant to be a hero, and maybe I am just some spy, and you’re just some kid from Brooklyn who never knew when enough was enough, but together we both were something more, and I can never thank you for giving me even the small amount of time we spent together,” she finished.

“Nat?” she heard his hoarse voice call out in a hushed tone.

“Yes?” she said.

“Will you lay with me?” he asked, and she couldn’t deny.

Slipping into the cramped hospital bed, she placed her head on his chest with her arms wrapped around him, and listened to the sound of his breath.

“Thank you,” he whispered.

“For what?” she asked.

“For always fighting by my side, even though I’m losing this one,” he said.

“Steve…,” she started.

“The rest of the team came in here and said their goodbye, but I just want you to hold me until I go because if you say goodbye I’ll know this is real, and the hardest part of this is leaving you,” he said, choking back a sob.

“Whatever you want,” Natasha said. “Just close your eyes. I’ll be right here – I’ll always be right here.”

Steve exhaled a long breath. “I imagined dying would be easier than this,” and she laughed, squeezing him tighter.

“Don’t think about, just try to fall asleep,” she said.

“Tash… love you,” he said sounding weaker.

“I know,” she said, kissing him one last time on the lips, before returning to her spot on his chest.

She listened to his heart beat beneath her ear, each time slower then the next, as she closed her eyes, and tried to pretend all this one some terrible nightmare. But it wasn’t, and the sound of the monitor as it gave one last long beep, was no alarm clock to wake her up from this.

He was still warm from all the drugs that they were pumping into him to guarantee he felt no pain, but Natasha had none to stop the utter emptiness she felt, as her heart shattered into a million pieces. She didn’t know that she was sobbing until she heard Clint’s voice in her ear, telling her that it would be alright. 

He wrapped his arms around her, and tried to lift her off of Steve’s lifeless form, but she resisted. “NO! STOP! He told me to hold him, I promised to stay with him,” she said in a broken scream.

“Nat he’s gone,” Clint said in a painful voice. 

Natasha knew that he was right, but it didn’t hurt any less. Even as she watched the doctors cover his body, and now as she stood at the podium, with hundreds gathered around waiting for her to speak at Steve’s funeral, she couldn’t help but look at his casket, with the America flag draped over it, and wish that it was her lying inside of it.

She coughed, clearing her voice, and then looked at the faces of the remaining Avengers in the crowd. She wondered what they would all do without a Captain, but she knew Steve would want them to fight on, because fighting for good was what he lived for, and what he would forever live for in everyone’s hearts, including hers. 

“Saying goodbye is only hard when you’re never going to say hello again,” she started. “And while Steve Rogers is gone, I like to think that none of us will ever have really said goodbye to him because his legacy and everything he stood for will never truly be gone. I for one will think of him, now, tomorrow, and the next with a smile on my face because I had the chance to really know Steve Rogers, and I know that there will never in my lifetime be a hero so kind, brave, and worthy as Steve Rogers really was, but that doesn’t mean we stop fighting,” Natasha said, wiping a tear from her eye. 

“Someone I loved very much told me that even when you’re fighting a losing fight, you continue fighting through the people besides you, and that is how Captain America will never die. Steve Rogers’s heart was always ten times stronger than his shield, so while that shield gets buried with him today, his heart will continue fighting in each of us, and it will give us the strength to never give up. I know I won’t.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm working on another fic, maybe Age Of ultron related. Follow my tumblr @egg-of-ultron, for any requests or if you just want to discuss Avenger feels. 
> 
> Thanks for reading and I hope I didn't emotionally scar you too bad. Any review would be appreciated:)


End file.
